A conversation about journalism, the internet, media, trust, truth, libraries & archives, social networks & publishing, and the democratisation of doubt - with occasional photographs and a nod to cinema.

#1. Mary Wickham Bond, the wife of the bird watcher and author, James Bond, (whose name provided Ian Fleming with his licenced-to-kill hero) wrote a book about it in 1966.

How 007 Got His Name is a 62-page trip into pre pre-history:

“…And after reading Dr. No, my JB thought you’d been to Dirty Dick’s in Nassau and talked with old Farrington and got from him the story about the “Priscilla” and a wild trip about Jim’s collecting parrots on Abaco. That was the time spent several nights in a cave full of bats to get away from the mosquitoes……This is a hurried letter because we’re getting off to Yucatan and Cozumel this afternoon, thence back to Nassau where we’ll spend a few days with the Chaplins.I tell my JB he could sue you for defamation of character but he regards the whole thing as a joke. Sincerely yours…”

To which Fleming replied in a friendly letter:

“In return I can only offer your James Bond unlimited use of the name Ian Fleming for any purpose he may think fit. Perhaps one day he will discover some particularly horrible species of bird he would like to christen in an insulting fashion…”

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

There are always echoes to be heard in the reading rooms of the British Library

What is especially interesting about Longley-Cook’s* summer 1951 reflections is the extent to which he highlights the differences between British and American intelligence assessments of the Soviet threat. He had been alarmed during the combined US/UK intelligence conference in Washington in October 1950 by the degree to which the American equivalent of the JIC produced assessments that “tend to fit in with the prejudged conclusion that a shooting war with the Soviet Union at some time is inevitable…Although the Americans were eventually persuaded to endorse a combined appreciation of the Soviet threat, based on reason and factual intelligence, they were quick to alter it to fit their own preconceived ideas as soon as the London team had returned to this country.”

The author (in tandem with a former Cabinet Secretary) was the best thing on television over Christmas - albeit after midnight on the BBC Parliament channel. Here, without the laughter from the stands (and members of the Public Administration Select Committee) is a transcript of a great old fashioned discussion about political memoirs.